what is up with my smoke alarm?

[Pirate Pete]

although this is a technical question, i didnt think it really granted being in the technical forum

basically, came home yesterday and i heard a high pitched beeping every 2 minutes or so.

after some searching and by the process of elimination i come to the conclusion that my smoke alarm outside my bedroom is the source of the high pitched noise

because by this time it had really started to get on my nerves and because we have another one downstairs i took the battery out and went to bed

this morning i put the battery back in, and it starts beeping again!

im fairly sure its not because the battery is about to run out, becuase when i hold down the botton to test it it beeps at me as if it had detected smoke

do i need a new smoke alarm?

anyone got any knowledge of smoke alarms?

whats wrong with it?!

any help much appreiciated

Pete

[headbrace]

Beeping is usually to tell you the battery is running out, at least it does on ours.

Surely the simplest thing is to whack in a new battery and see if that solves it. I'm sure your continued safety is worth the expense of a new 9v battery just to test.

[menthel]

It needs a new battery! That happenned to mine, and once I put in a new battery it stopped.

[Elmo]

no you need to change the battery. It will keep beeping until you change it. Ours was doing that the other week, my mum dismantled the whole thing and put a new battery in the next day and it stopped.

[Pirate Pete]

oh right, off to town i go then

thanks guys and girls

[XA04]

on one of ours it did that, we thought it was the battery, but we placed it and it carried on doing it, so we just had to replace it.

[IBM]

I had exactly the same problem. It beeps to tell you that it's running out of power, and then when you change the battery, it keeps beeping for a while and then stops.

At the time I thought it might be because the alarm has it's own backup power supply, which charges off the 9V. So it waits until the battery dies, then pulls power off it's own PSU, which triggers the alarm. Then when you put the new battery goes in, the alarm is still going off because the PSU is being recharged, and the alarm won't stop until it reaches fully charged.

At the time (3.30am on a Sundary morning) it made perfect sense, but now it seems a little complicated for a crappy fire alarm which probably cost £5 from B&Q.

[Pirate Pete]

yeh this one looks fairly old, sort of beige plasticy in colour

im pretty sure its over 5 years old

the new batteries have done the trick though, got some rechargeables

thanks again girls and guys

the pirate

[shelley bda]

I test my smoke alarm regularly... we don't have to worry about batteries as it's connected to the straight to the electric



We's also got a carbon monoxide alarm.... cos wer'e good like that in our house

[Twigman]

Which big LAN party organisation has fire exits chained and padlocked up?
Im sure the photos have been posted all over the net...lol

[Trippledence]

We got some post interconected mains powerd ones not so long ago. So when sausage smoke driftes into the back kitchen the whole house gets to know about it, umm safe.

[Nick]

And dont forget to hoover them on the odd ocassion too! Dust build up can set off false alarms, or worse, stop the alarm going off!

[Steve]

I test my smoke alarm regularly... we don't have to worry about batteries as it's connected to the straight to the electric

Good to know that if you have a fire that starts due to your electrics failing that you're well looked after then

[shelley bda]

Good to know that if you have a fire that starts due to your electrics failing that you're well looked after then

Hahaha yeah, be just my luck 'an all! Hopefully the circuit breaker will kick in before then though

[Pirate Pete]

thats a pimped smoke alarm pyle

i didnt know you were a fireman...?

Pete

[iranu]

Come on tell us how you bust your foot Pyle is it another classic?